Paolo Volonté (Coordinator)
DESIGN
Paolo Volontè obtained a PhD in Sociology at the Università Cattolica di Milano (2003) and a PhD in Philosophy at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg i.Br. (1995). His main research interests concern the social dynamics of knowledge production, with special focus on the fields of science, technology and design. He is a founder and former President of the Italian Society of Science and Technology Studies (STS Italia) and co-editor of the International Journal of Fashion Studies (indexed in WoS and Scopus).
paolo.volonte@polimi.it
Hernán Bobadilla
DMAT
Hernán Bobadilla studied Geology (MSc) at University of Chile and History and Philosophy of Science at University College London (MSc). He obtained his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Vienna. His main research interests concern scientific representation, scientific explanation and understanding, sustainability and the ethics of risk. Currently, he is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie “Seal of Excellence” postdoctoral research fellow.
hernanfelipe.bobadilla@polimi.it
Paolo Bory
DESIGN
Paolo Bory studied Sociology (BA) at the Università Federico II di Napoli and Media Studies (MA) at the Università di Torino. In 2018 he obtained his PhD in Communication Sciences from the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), Switzerland. His research deals with the history and imaginaries of media and technological change. In particular, his work focuses on the history and imaginaries of the Internet and computer networks, on the history of supercomputing and on the narratives of artificial intelligence. In the last years he has been Visiting PhD student at CNRS in Paris, and Visiting Postdoc at the Chair of History of Technology of ETH Zurich.
paolo.bory@polimi.it
Stefano Canali
DEIB
Stefano Canali is junior assistant professor at the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering. His research is based in philosophy of science, with particular interests in the philosophy of medicine, data and technology and with a grounding in scientific and technological practice. His current projects investigate the epistemology and ethics of advanced technologies for digital health and personalised medicine, including wearable devices and artificial intelligence. Before joining Politecnico, Stefano received his PhD at Leibniz University Hannover as a member of the graduate school “Integrating the Ethics and Epistemology of Scientific Research” and completed a MsC in philosophy of science and science and technology studies at University College London and a BA in philosophy at the University of Milan.
stefano.canali@polimi.it
Riccardo Chesta
DEIB
Riccardo Emilio Chesta is a comparative sociologist whose work investigates the social and political dimension of expertise, how science and technology interact with democratic processes and the participation of lay people. His research has investigated the politics of expertise on environmental issues, labour mobilizations on digital platforms and the interaction dynamics between scientific experts and social movements in the Covid-19 pandemic. Previously, he studied Sociology (BSc) at the University of Trento, Social Sciences (MSc) at the EHESS and ENS in Paris and obtained a PhD in Social and Political Sciences at the European University Institute in Florence. He has also been Postdoctoral Researcher at the Scuola Normale Superiore, as well as Visiting Researcher at New York University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is a member of COSMOS – Center on Social Movement Studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore.
riccardoemilio.chesta@polimi.it
Daniele Chiffi
DASTU
Daniele Chiffi studied Philosophy (Lecce; MA), Logic (ILLC, Amsterdam; MSc) and History of Science (Bari; PhD). His areas of specialization are (formal) epistemology, general philosophy of science, non-classical logics, philosophy of medicine. His areas of competence are normativity and uncertainty, philosophy of language, clinical reasoning, ethics of science and technology. He has been Lecturer and Research Fellow at Tallinn University of Technology, New University of Lisbon, Università di Padova and Università del Salento. He spent research periods in Padua, Cambridge, and Paris.
daniele.chiffi@polimi.it
Simona Chiodo
DASTU
Simona Chiodo obtained her PhD in Philosophy at the Università di Milano in 2006, after research stays at Harvard University. Her research deals with epistemology (relationship between reality and ideality, epistemological dualism), aesthetics (representation, aesthetics of architecture) and the history of philosophy (modern and contemporary Anglo-American philosophy). She was Visiting Professor at the University of Cambridge and at the University of Edinburgh, Visiting Scholar at the University of Pittsburgh and Academic Visitor at Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology.
simona.chiodo@polimi.it
Rawad El Skaf
DMAT
Rawad El Skaf studied Computer Science (MSc, Nice and Polytechnique de Toulouse) and History and Philosophy of Science (MA and PhD, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). He was a Marie-Curie Fellow at the University of Salzburg. His research interests concern general topics in the History and Philosophy of Science. More precisely, he works on Surrogative Reasoning and Scientific Tools beyond (direct) laboratory experiments: i.e., Thought Experiments, Computer Simulations, Scientific Models and Analogue Experiments, and their use in several scientific fields, mainly physics and climate science. During his career, he has spent research and teaching periods at Pittsburgh, Santiago, Beirut, Geneva, and Salzburg.
rawad.elskaf@polimi.it
Fabio Fossa
DMEC
Fabio Fossa obtained a PhD in Philosophy at the Università di Pisa. His main research areas are applied ethics, philosophy of technology, robot and AI ethics, and the history of philosophy (Hans Jonas). His current research deals with the philosophy of artificial agency and the ethics of autonomous driving. Previously he was a post-doc researcher at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna and at the Università di Torino and a lecturer in AI Ethics at the Università di Pisa. He is Editor-In-Chief of InCircolo – Rivista di filosofia e culture and a founding member of the Zetesis Research Group.
fabio.fossa@polimi.it
Chris Hesselbein
DIG
Chris Hesselbein received his PhD in Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University. He is an ethnographer who studies how knowledge and technology, both digital and more mundane, are co-constructed with conceptions of social order and self-identity. Chris is particularly interested in exploring how the production and consumption of technoscience inform, and often naturalize/normalize, our understandings of embodiment, materiality, and aesthetics. Other research projects examine how (expert) knowledge is established as (un)authoritative, and how ‘alternative arti/facts’ are enacted on digital platforms through algorithmic processes.
chris.hesselbein@polimi.it
Viola Schiaffonati
DEIB
Viola Schiaffonati obtained her PhD in Philosophy of Science from Università di Genova in 2004. Her main research interests include: the philosophical issues of artificial intelligence, robotics and computer science, the epistemology and methodology of experiments in computer engineering and autonomous robotics, the analysis of the ethical issues of intelligent and autonomous systems. She has been Visiting Scholar at the Department of Philosophy of the University of California at Berkeley and Visiting Researcher at the Suppes Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Science and Technology of the Stanford University.
viola.schiaffonati@polimi.it
Giovanni Valente
DMAT
Giovanni Valente obtained his PhD at the University of Maryland in 2009. His research deals with the philosophy and foundations of physics and mathematics, as well as with general issues of philosophy of science, such as probability, symmetries, time, reduction and climate modeling. He previously worked at University of Pittsburgh and throughout his career he spent extensive periods of research in various universities around the world, most notably in Oxford, Budapest, Tilburg, Princeton, Paris, Irvine, Sydney, Utrecht, Cambridge, Munich and Salzburg.
giovanni.valente@polimi.it